Last week saw Air India Express unveil its new livery at an elaborate function in Mumbai. As expected, it became the talk of the town immediately with most of the aviation geeks talking positively about the new livery. This was sharply in contrast to what happened after Air India’s livery was unveiled in August, in Delhi.
The Air India Express livery features the same “Air India” font with an orange “express” and a tail which is similar, if not same, to that of Air India. Multiple news stories in the past which claimed that the new Air India will continue with the unique tails for Air India Express came to a logical conclusion when the various motifs that would be on the tail along with the colour schemes were shared by Air India Express.
Air India Express has been profit making ,the airline has had unique tails on all its planes, has been at the centre of disasters yet has had little attention being paid – largely because its network was always tilted from one region in the country to the gulf. The new livery felt like getting someone from the last row to the first.
There is no denying the fact that the livery and the way the whole streaming was arranged was exemplary, but why the opposite reactions – especially when Air India Express livery has elements of the Air India livery, especially the font and part of the tail design. The livery or part of the livery was leaked on social media a few days prior to the event. The leaked image did not show the now “iconic” tail.
Did the livery exceed expectations or were the expectations low? Was the love for Air India far more than Air India Express and the aviation fraternity expected a lot more from Air India? Seeing the livery take shape on Air India’s A350 has seen a change of heart for many an avgeeks?
There are many ways to look at it, but either ways – most don’t select the airline based on livery instead the focus is on cost, timing and convenience for which Air India Express will need time to build a network which is formidable enough to take on IndiGo on domestic routes and expand selectively on International. This will happen even without the livery change. With over 50 aircraft to be repainted, it is not an overnight exercise and will be timed with other checks to avoid double down time.
What are your thoughts on the livery, its similarity with Air India’s livery, the reaction for both and how do you look at the two reveals – “Same Same, but different?”
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